UK Chancellor George Osborne tells the environmental lobby today that Britain should not be “in front of the rest of the world” in tackling climate change. In an interview with The Times, the Chancellor dismissed as a gimmick Ed Miliband’s pledge to freeze energy prices, but he signalled that he could ease green measures if prices continued to rise. Michael Fallon, the Energy Minister, is understood to be looking at reducing the burden of environmental measures on household bills in the next Conservative manifesto. --Francis Elliott, Alice Thomson and Rachel Sylvester, The Times, 28 September 2013